Racing Through Myself the City

I've walked Grand Canyons of mind
Through the narrowing cracks
Of building opinion, suddenly turning to find
Myself on the attack
With the growing rage
Of my own silent minions-
I've struggled to be free
And keep my captors in the harness,
Faced the firing squads of fear
In a tuxedo cut from my darkness,
Searched the alleys and cans
For a single dream
Of something
I felt compelled to call pretty,
Smoked the dying cigarette of a last man
Who tried with shaking mechanical hands
To show me the plan of the self in the city-
I ate the food my brothers laced with poison served me
And spent forevers washing down
Their golden silt goblets to achieve
A river of green forgiveness-
I've wailed oceans and sank their bottoms,
Survived only silently through treading determination
Till life arrived to preserve me-
Been stabbed again and again again
You manipulated, manipulating bastard of a bastard-
Who treated you like a bastard-
You made it hard to love you.
I've knocked over more plates than I've eaten,
Taken the food from a baby of innocence
And thrown it to a sewer of deception
For the vultures to pick at
And watch it grow and pick again.
I've chained my thoughts to a rock
And thrown food to my agony
To feast my desire
To tear my wanting limb from limb
To burn my soul over coals of cold despair
For eternities of mind,
Of pain, of aching brain,
I've lain across tracks of truth to break that chain,
Got bored then ran to start the engine again.
I've lusted my way into holes
I wouldn't care to mention,
Lost myself in warm ecstasies under honey-running volcanoes,
Made love in the pure fire blinding white union,
Had sex somewhere between the sheets of a lover,
Been afraid to love or hate or masturbate,
Share my soul or smoke a bowl
With a stranger
Who's maybe more deranger than me.
I've slipped on the marbles of insanity,
Got stuck on a one-stop lost rock block of thought
That lasted for days then weeks and years
Of teenage fears and endless beers
And LSD highs high on the mountaintops
Over drops and drops of cops and guns
And midnight runs to stores for more-
I'm known by every owner of a liquor store
For miles and days in the dirty ashtray haze of Sacramento-
Poor Indian bums guttered in the street nearby
Make you wanna stop for a beer and cry
But no time to waste in the chase
Of cars and bars and happy-hour stars
All pressed against the backside
Of the Church of the Blessed Union,
Next to the American River
Or maybe even in it-
But let us not hope this is the end and begin it
Before the sun of this muse and the strength of this spirit
Begins to drain down to its very last minute,
Let us not oversight before the vision has set
That this one road traveled is the only road we get-
That minding this body on rocking through Hell
Prepares Heaven eyes for seeing it well.

Set of Footprints in the Sand

There's not enough music in the world
To sum up the feeling I feel now,
Not enough trees in the woods
To find the shape my soul is knotted towards,
Not enough wind in sky
To blow the precise chill temperature,
Not enough hands
To touch the place that longs for contact,
Not enough mothers
To comfort me in this hour,
Not enough philosophy
To soothe my mind in ideas,
Not enough clothes
To cover up what's slipping out naked to the world;

Not enough legends
To inspire these feet to climb,
Not enough religion
To walk this water on faith,
Not enough drugs
To keep me fully numb,
Not enough pictures
To capture this feeling in its motion,
Not enough walls
To make me safe,
Not enough windows
To bend this striking light
And not enough time or sculpture
To capture this feeling as it anchors
Sentiment to indescribable floor.

The Turning Wheel

Assembled from the machinery of land
A human treads the very sand
They sprouted from
And moves through space like a dreaming breath
Which dreams those things the world cannot
And touches with hands the beating breast
Of earth, tracing lines along the knot
Of pines, of slowly growing moss
With legs the rooted trees have not,
With fingers of skin, sensitive and soft
Pushing in amongst the rot
Of wood and leaves they once lived in
Through worms and roving flocks of wings,
Through beetles and the buzz of passing flies
Who long since now have sunk back thought
To dirt in which the process lies;
At rest yet working the turning wheel
These passing thoughts have risen from
Like spokes emerging from ground to feel
The warm turning of the sun-